Wikimedia Commons / Gage Skidmore
Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick showed off his taste in men’s fashion during a speech in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Someone needs to tell Lt. Governor Dan Patrick that Texas has a real problem. A serious and urgent problem.
First, Texas has the highest number of uninsured people in the U.S. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 21.7% of Texas adults ages 19 to 64 will not have health insurance in 2023, nearly double the national average.
The United States also consistently ranks last when it comes to worker protections, with unemployment benefits covering less than 10% of the average cost of living, according to a recent CNBC survey.
When it comes to public schools, Texas spends $4,000 less per student than the national average, putting it in the bottom 10. Additionally, the base allocation for school spending has not increased since 2019.
None of this seems like a big deal to Patrick, who recently released his second list of 21 legislative priorities for the Texas Senate, where he chairs and sets the agenda.
Governor Patrick’s directive further bolsters far-right priorities that add fuel to the culture war fires rather than seeking just solutions to our state’s most serious shortcomings.
For example, taking on familiar Republican villains, Patrick wants to “expose” how the university’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs are “harmful and out of sync with the state’s workforce needs.” After the state Legislature passed a bill last session banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs at public universities (resulting in layoffs and chaos), Patrick now wants to “examine the programs and credentials” of other universities, possibly private ones.
Patrick also wants to ban protesters from wearing masks, part of an effort to emulate laws recently passed in other Republican-leaning states. He suggests protesters wear masks to avoid crime. Civil rights groups and people with compromised immune systems say such bans solve nothing and infringe on their right to protect their identity and health.
And in a standard Republican ploy, Patrick has called on lawmakers to debate proposals to bar non-citizens from voting — without taking into account, of course, that state laws, including two passed in 2021, already require that only citizens may vote, or that it is extremely rare for non-citizens to try to register to vote, or that election officials don’t flag their applications, voting experts say.
Until Texans decide to remove this idiot from office, the Legislature will continue to pass more biased priorities and divisive bills, which will only snowball the Lone Star State’s real, immediate and serious problems.
Subscribe to the SA Current newsletter.
Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter| or subscribe to our RSS feed
